Thursday, August 28, 2014

When "integrated" is in your name, cooperation is
more than a goal. It's a necessity.

At the Western Integrated Pest Management Center, that
cooperation is seen in many ways, including close ties between the Center,
Western Region IR-4 and the Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and
Education Program.

"I think of it like concentric circles," said
Western IPM Center Director Jim Farrar. "IR-4 supports pesticide registrations
for specialty crops, and pesticides are a component of integrated pest
management. Integrated pest management is itself a component of the larger
circle of sustainable agriculture."

With the IR-4 Project, the Center provides input on how well
a proposed new pesticide fits into an integrated pest management approach.
Farrar and several of the Center staff and directors participate in monthly
conference calls with their Western Region IR-4 counterparts.

“We’re trying to get IPM considered more in IR-4’s
priority-setting process,” Farrar explained. “We encourage using IPM as a
framework for thinking about new pesticides.”

From IR-4’s perspective, the partnership is working.

“Jim and the IPM
team have been a great help in assessing the Western Region IR-4 program’s
priorities and potential fit into IPM programs,” said Western Region
IR-4 Field Coordinator Becky Sisco.
“I’m grateful for their expertise and assistance.”

And to bring Sisco’s expertise to the IPM community, she is a
member of the Center’s advisory committee, which helps set priorities and
direction for the Center.

That kind of reciprocal arrangement also links the Center
with the Western SARE program. Farrar was recently named to the Western SARE
Administrative Council, that group’s policy-setting body, and Western SARE
Regional Coordinator Teryl Roper is on the Center’s Steering Committee, its
policy-setting group.

“Jim
has great expertise in pest management, and there’s not a lot of that on the Western
SARE Administrative Council,” Roper said. “Jim also travels a lot around the
West and that allows a broad view of Western agriculture.”

Because the area served by both organizations is identical
and their missions are similar, having reciprocal representation reduces the
possibility of duplicating or overlapping each other’s efforts, Roper said.

Farrar sees working with Western SARE as an opportunity to
help further the mission of both organizations.

“I think pest management is an important part of
sustainability,” he said. “Hopefully when there is an opportunity to talk about
pests and sustainable pest management, I’ll be involved in those discussions.”

The Western IPM Center supports the development, adoption and evaluation of integrated pest management to benefit the people, environment and economy of the West. From our headquarters in Davis, California, we serve 13 Western states and the Pacific Island territories.